Ferguson, H. (2010, June/July). Join the flock!. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-june-july-2010.aspx
McClintock Miller, S. (2010, June/July). Enhance your twitter experience. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-june-july-2010.aspx
Hadley Ferguson explains the importance of building a Personal Learning Network (PLN). A PLN is a community of people that learn together. This community contributes to forums, participates in discussions, connects applicable resources, and more. Ferguson is clear that establishing such a community takes commitment and effort, much like strengthening a new friendship. Her primary mode of networking is Twitter, and she provides helpful tips for successfully maintaining a sense of collaboration and learning. It is important to follow other users, join interest groups (lists), listen/read others’ posts, and give back to the Twitter community with effective ideas and resources.
Shannon McClintock Miller echoes these tips and more. Her article expounds on more of the organizational aspects of the social network tool, including site shortcuts and a glossary of Twitter terms (i.e. “Tweeps” - your PLN individuals who follow you on Twitter and other networking sites). She also shares a favorite tweet, which suggests that 70% of tweets should be contributions to the network, 20% should be responses, and 10% should be casual conversation. That guideline is a great bit of advice for Twitter users.
How can educators utilize Twitter for professional development?
Ferguson describes lists, which are essentially topic-driven groups. If a teacher is especially interested in math education, he can search for a math education list and follow it. By doing so, the resources assigned to that list (done so using a hashtag #) show up on his homepage. This type of funnelled following is necessary because it brings interest topics directly to the user. As teachers follow other users, it is wise to check out what lists those users are following to see if there are common interests.
What types of resources are appropriate to share?
The best way to learn this is by observing what other users link and post. Oftentimes users share journal articles, blog posts, magazine highlights, etc., and assign them to a list. If you find a cool new video or article that someone else could benefit from, post it! Generally, if you think it is interesting, someone else will, too.
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